Nationwide good deed

During a nationwide subbotnik, the Head of State took part in the improvement of the Khatyn Memorial Complex

Together with his team, Aleksandr Lukashenko planted apple trees and wild rose bushes near symbolic log cabins. Then the President took part in the laying of the park of historical memory — 149 trees will grow here according to the number of dead villagers.
“As a symbol that life goes on regardless of how difficult things can be,” explained the Belarusian leader.
March 22nd, 2023 marks the 80th anniversary of the tragedy in Khatyn — by this date the Memorial Complex is planned to be reconstructed and modernised. The Head of State got acquainted with the proposals for the further development of this memorial place and expressed his vision of how the new museum in Khatyn should look like, “I want all the works to begin in May. Report the deadlines, plans, who will work, expert evaluations, designs, and cost estimates to me by 9th May. We have to do everything by this anniversary. Start building the museum right away. We will provide funding. Simplify everything as much as possible. 

The exhibition it will have is the key. I want people’s hearts broken already before they walk here.” 

Back in January, during the Address to the Belarusian people and the National Assembly, the Head of State supported the initiative of the student groups of the Belarusian Republican Youth Union to declare the construction of a new museum in Khatyn an All-Belarusian Youth Construction Site. Therefore, it is no coincidence that not only the President and his team, journalists from the presidential pool, but also activists of the main youth public organisation of the country, led by the head of the public association Aleksandr Lukyanov, came out to work last Saturday. Together with them, there were workers of the local forestry.
Aleksandr Lukashenko, speaking with journalists, stressed the importance of such joint labour events, “We don’t force anyone to work. They do it voluntarily. If you want to work in this case in the name of these people who were burned — including children. They wanted to live — they were burned. We want to pay tribute to the memory of those people. We’ve come. If some scoundrel wants to forget it, cross it out (we see it in our southern neighbour), it is his business. We will fight it ferociously.” 
In a conversation with journalists, the President also recalled that there used to be a village church on the territory of the current Khatyn Memorial Complex, near the old cemetery, and this is one of those elements that may soon appear again. 

Important lessons from history

On April 10th, a glaring incident occurred at the Memorial Complex in Buchenwald: an unknown individual replaced the state flag of the Republic of Belarus with a white-red-white flag. Concerned Belarusians staged a protest near the German embassy in Minsk, the country’s ambassador came out to them and even apologised for what had happened. As a satisfaction, the diplomat was offered to take part in the subbotnik in Khatyn. However, the ambassador did not come to the Memorial Complex. 


Aleksandr Lukashenko commented on this fact, “Don’t trust them, just don’t. For them it has become a thing to come, shed some tears, and say sorry for doing bad things here. If you remember, people came from Austria and Germany (to the Trostenets Memorial Complex in 2018). It seemed that’s it, our land was consecrated and they would never touch this sacred place with dirty hands. Look what happened later on: sanctions, sanctions, sanctions… They do their Anglo-Saxon thing as we tend to call it or the thing of the collective West. They couldn’t care less about this history and about what happened to these poor people — about 150 kids, women, and old folks.

This ambassador doesn’t care, as well as other ambassadors.” 

Moreover, according to the President, the actions of Western diplomats are ‘tantamount to fascism’. Aleksandr Lukashenko promised that in the future he would publish important data on the activities of various European ambassadors in Belarus, 

“We will summarise all the documents and release what they are doing here. You will be horrified.” 

The Head of State also responded to publications in Western mass media, which claim the visit to the cosmodrome had been arranged in order to take photos of Aleksandr Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin together with the nuclear launch suitcase. 
“Right. We posed for photos. I didn’t even see the suitcase. It is astounding. The rocket was a beauty! Truth be told, it was not the first time I’d seen this rocket. It was not the first time I’d been photographed with this rocket in the background. And Putin and I have plenty of photos. This is why, you know, those are small and disgusting insinuations. Someone may be envious of the huge empire inviting a younger brother in order to work together and gaze into the future,” said Aleksandr Lukashenko.   
The Belarusian leader focused on the main results of his trip to Russia, “So a new page in our relations has been opened. All kinds of prohibitions against Belarus’ presence at Russian restricted construction sites have been lifted. The cosmodrome is a secret restricted construction project. The main thing is that the proposal for Belarus to help finish building the cosmodrome had come from Russia. You have seen these sites for launching rockets. We flew around and saw the second construction site — this is the airfield. And the third object is housing. They are very far behind. Such specialists need housing, they will not live in tents. It was a proposal of the President of Russia.”

Based on materials of sb.by and belta.by